The ruble’s slump this year is swelling exporters’ local-currency proceeds from overseas sales and bolstering profit
margins. The Micex has advanced 2.4 percent this month,
supported by better-than-predicted Chinese trade data and
remarks by Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen that the U.S.
economy is improving.

“The weaker the ruble is, the better for exporters, like
Norilsk, as well as for other metal producers and oil and gas
companies,” Ovanes Oganisyan, a strategist at MidLincoln
Research in Moscow, said by phone. “This week we’re seeing a
return of investor interest for emerging markets. Yellen,
Chinese data have helped improve the image of riskier assets.”

Rates Meeting

Russia’s central bank extended its interest-rate pause to
17 months and signaled for the first time that it’s prepared to
tighten monetary policy if ruble weakness adds to inflation
risks. The currency weakened Feb. 3 to a record against Bank
Rossii’s target basket of dollars and euros, and traded little
changed at 40.9188 today.

OAO Moscow Exchange rose 1.1 percent to 64.60 rubles after
MSCI Inc. said yesterday it raised the stock’s weighting by 40
basis points to 0.9 percent in its Russia Index. The change
takes effect from the close on Feb. 28, according to a statement
on the MSCI website.

Russian equities have the cheapest valuations among 21
developing nations monitored by Bloomberg, with shares on the
Micex trading at 3.2 times projected 12-month earnings, compared
with a multiple of 9.2 for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.